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September Writers’ Meeting

Today we held our Sept. meeting. Our next meeting will be held on Sunday, October 19, 2014, from 12:30 to 3 PM at Bella Caffe in Park Rapids MN.

PRESENT: Sharon, Jan, Ryan, Cindy, Mary, Richard, Jerry

TALKING STICK: We had our Book Release Party on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2014, for TS23. We had 29 people for the morning workshop with Marsh Muirhead and many great comments afterward. We had about 60 people for the readings at the Book Party. We got to greet old friends and meet many new people. Some of us stayed on for supper at Blueberry Pines afterward.

Brainerd Writers Alliance Writing Contest and Fall Festival—deadline was August 25 and winners will be announced Sept. 25, 2014. Email bevabear@brainerd.net regarding festival.

COMPETITION: The League of MN Poets, 27th Annual Manningham Poetry Competition for School year 2014-2015. Grades 6-8 and Grades 9-12. Contact Peter Stein at pwilliamstein@yahoo.com for more information. Deadline January 15, 2015.

POETS TO READ:

Tomas Transtromer

William Carlos Williams

We mentioned “pacing” in poetry. Later, I looked up on the Internet and found some good descriptions of this.

From auburn.edu: By pacing I mean the speed of utterance, how quickly or slowly the language moves through the poem. Obviously, the decisions we make about pacing are based on many factors. You pause differently for different kinds of punctuation, for difficult words or hard to pronounce word-combinations; your assessment of the tone of the poem is likely to affect the speed with which you read it, as will rhyme, formality, and a host of other things.

From Answers.com: Using short words like “lick, flick” that convey quick actions and convey speed in some way, increase the pace or speed of the poem.

Whereas words that linger longer, for example “oozing” and often alliterations slow down the pace of the poem

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Many of us brought things to read and the others critiqued. A good meeting! Hope to see you all next time!